Langsdale Library, University of Baltimore

PUAD 623
Bureaucracy and the Political Process
Richard Swaim
Fall 2009

Individual course index / fa09 / puad623_swaim.htm

Introduction | Annotated Bibliography Help
Recommended Books | Finding Journal Articles | Book catalogs
Government Sources | Think Tanks and Policy Centers
Other helpful information

Introduction:
This guide provides information on finding sources for your PUAD 623assignments. This page will be updated and revised as the semester progresses.

For questions, contact the librarian for this course:

You can also email Langsdale Library Reference at langref@ubalt.edu, call at (410) 837-4274, or try our Live Chat.

Annotated Bibliography help:
Having trouble understanding how to write an annotated bibliography? These sites give advice or examples. Actual examples from previous classes will be posted in the "Course Content" section of WebTycho.

Sample Annotated Bibliography
http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/howto/course_websites/sp09/gvpp384_annbib_ex1.doc An example of how to write and annotated bibliography for the Pathfinder Assignment. This example is on a completely different subject than yours, but the format is similar.

Annotated Bibliographies
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/AnnotatedBibliography.html
Describes how to write annotated bibliographies. It provides good examples of entries in an annotated bibliography.

Annotated Bibliographies
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_annotatedbib.html
Guide from the Purdue University describing how to write annotated bibliographies. The examples are particularly good.

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill28.htm
Describes how to write annotated bibliographies. It gives a good overview of the process.

Recommended Books:
Here are some books at Langsdale Library that might get you started. If you are not within driving distance of Langsdale Library, please check your local public or university library.

Bessette, J. M. (Ed.). (1998) Encyclopedia of American government (Vols. 1-4). Pasadena, CA: Salem. (Reference - 1st floor, call number: JK 9 .E52 1998)

Rabin, J ., Hildreth, W. B., & Miller, G. J. (1998). Handbook of public administration (2nd ed.). New York: Marcel Dekker.
Online: http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=1270

Sears, J.L. (2001). Using government information sources: Electronic and print. Phoenix: Oryx Press. (Reference - 1st floor, call number: J 83.S4 2001)

Shafritz, J.M. (ed.). (1998). International encyclopedia of public policy and administration. Boulder: Westview Press. (Reference - 1st floor, call number: H97 .I574 1998)

Finding Journal Articles :
Journal articles are difficult to find through search engines like Google or Yahoo! or through the library catalog. Use online databases (like the ones listed below) to find full text journal or magazine articles and/or citations to articles.

You will need a Langsdale Library barcode to use these databases. Click here to see how they are different from other parts of the Internet.

Academic Search Premier  [on-campus] [help]
Coverage: 1990 - present. Provides full-text for over 3,400 scholarly journals covering the social sciences, humanities, education, sciences, and more. Funded by the Maryland Digital Library (MDL). Need help? Read the Academic Search Premier Visual Guide.

ACM Digital Library [on-campus] [help]
Coverage: 1985-present
Collection of citations and full text from the Association for Computing Machinery journal and newsletter articles and conference proceedings.

Business Source Premier [on-campus] [help]
Coverage: Varies– present. Business Source Premier provides full text for nearly 8,350 scholarly business journals and other sources, including full text for more than 1,100 scholarly business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. This database provides full text (PDF) for more than 350 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922. Funded by the Maryland Digital Library (MDL). Includes company profiles, many of which contain SWOT analyses.

Communication & Mass Media Complete [on-campus]
Coverage: various dates. Provides the most robust, quality research solution in areas related to communication and mass media. This database originated with the acquisition and subsequent merging of two popular databases in the fields of communication and mass media studies -- CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University). Communication & Mass Media Complete provides an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and educators interested in any and all aspects of communication and mass media. offers full text for over 200 titles and contains citation coverage for additional sources. In total, several hundred valuable sources are covered.

Environment Complete   [on-campus] [help]
Coverage: Environment Complete offers deep coverage in applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more. Environment Complete contains more than 1,772,000 records from more than 1,680 domestic and international titles going back to the 1940s (including 1,108 active core titles) as well as more than 100 monographs. The database also contains full text for more than 650 journals.

Humanities International Complete (EBSCO) [on-campus]
Humanities International Complete is an essential collection for comprehensive coverage of the humanities with some full text content. Produced by Whitston Publishing (an imprint of EBSCO Publishing), this database includes all data from Humanities International Index (over 2,000 titles and 2 million records) plus unique full text content, much of which is not found in other databases. The database includes full text for more than 770 journals.

JSTOR [on-campus]
Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published prior to the most current five years.

Public Affairs Index [on-campus] [help]
Covers all aspects of national and global contemporary public policy issues.

Having trouble using the databases?

  • Get a Langsdale Library barcode or renew your barcode.
  • Check out the ResearchPort Visual Guide.
  • Check out our online tutorials.
  • Break down wordy topics like "political parties in the 1930's in Central Europe"
    • political parties and postwar and Central Europe
  • Brainstorm synonyms for each of your keywords, and try out different combinations:
    • art and political and Central Europe
    • music and politics and Central Europe
    • waltz and society
    • painting and revolution and Eastern Europe
    • painting and society and Europe
  • If you want specific articles which Langsdale Library doesn't own, you can order them through Interlibrary Loan.
    • Interlibrary Loan may take 1-2 weeks. Order early!
    • Articles can usually be e-mailed to you.
    • To request an article, go to the Interlibrary Loan page or click on the yellow FindIt button in the database.
    • For more help, see our Guide to Interlibrary Loan.

Book catalogs:
Use these to locate books, journals (not individual articles), videos, and government documents.

UB Catalog [new interface!]
New interface to search for books at Langsdale Library, the University System of Maryland, and worldwide. It's based off of Worldcat, the collected catalogs of over 10,000 libraries.

UB Catalog [help]
Books, journals, government documents and other materials in Langsdale Library.

Catalog USMAI [help]
Books, journals, government documents and other materials in the University System of Maryland, including UB.

Government Sources:
Sometimes the best place to find information about the government is... the government itself. Here are places you can search:

USA.gov http://www.usa.gov/

The federal government's web portal. Includes a search engine for government websites

Google U.S. Government. (2006). http://www.google.com/ig/usgov

A specialized Google search, focusing on federal, state, and local government webistes.

Federal Register http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html

Searchable list of federal regulations, which guide how government agencies implement laws. Also available through Lexis-Nexis Academic under "Legal Research"

FedStats http://www.fedstats.gov

Central web portal for statistics produced by the US government.

Government Printing Office. GPO Access. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html

The publishing arm of the US government. Also try out their new search page, FDsys (beta): http://fdsys.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/home.action

Think Tanks/Policy Centers:
Here are links to a variety of nonprofit organizations and think tanks which often write about public policy issues. Some of these sources are neutral, but others lean right or left.

Think Tanks. (2007). Source Watch. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tanks

American Society for Public Administration. (2000). http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/index.cfm

American Enterprise Institute. http://www.aei.org/

Annenburg Public Policy Center. http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/

Brookings Institute. http://www.brookings.edu/

Cato Institute. http://www.cato.org/

Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/index.asp

Heritage Foundation. http://www.heritage.org/

Institute for Public Policy Research. http://www.ippr.org.uk/

Public Agenda. http://www.publicagenda.org/

Policy Agenda Project. http://www.policyagendas.org/

University of Michigan Documents Center. Political Science Resources on the Web.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/polisci.html

Rand Corporation http://www.rand.org/

Southern Poverty Law Center. http://www.splcenter.org/

Urban Institute http://www.urban.org/

Other helpful information:

How to Cite Sources: APA Style
Examples of APA citation for common documents

How to Cite Electronic & Print Sources
Links to guides about APA, Chicago, and Turabian citation style.

Using ResearchPort (Visual Guide)

Electronic Course Reserves

Register for a Library Barcode

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

For more information email langref@ubalt.edu, call 410-837-4274 or Chat with a Librarian at http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/info_services/contact.htm.

3/05 JH; rev 09/09 TA

http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/howto/course_websites/fa09/puad623_swaim.htm